


I Want Everything

by JoyisaBike



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Based on Netflix show, Because it is a Yennefer character study and it's hard to do that without angst, But I will do my best not to abandon, Character Study, Geralt may one day get a clue, Geralt still saying Hmmmm, Have only seen the show, How did I end up writing Yennskier I ask?, I really thought I'd be writing Geraskier but nope, I'm British and so's my spelling, Like, Mainly Yennefer centric, Multi, No beta we die like mne, She has sword skills, Show! Triss Merigold, Some angst, This is unfinished and I don't know where I'm going with it, Timeline What Timeline, What is continuity?, Yennefer Wants Everything, Yennefer hefts Jaskier, not much happens, tiny sex scenes, very small, will update tags and relationships as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:54:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 5,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26196700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoyisaBike/pseuds/JoyisaBike
Summary: Yennefer-centric drabbles (ish, I'm not quite sticking to the 100 words exactly) (update: I have entirely abandoned the 100 words policy. It's all chaos now. Who even knows what's happening anymore?), loosely connected. Probably eventually ending up in post-show ot3 territory. Mainly I'm throwing things out here as I desperately try to remember how to do writing, so I apologise if the quality is not high.Featuring Yennefer and Jaskier ending up in bed, Geralt saying "hmmm", Yennefer wants everything and ponders the definition of 'everything', Jaskier may or may not have a life that Geralt knows nothing about, and whatever other chaos I can think of throwing at this.She wakes up first, and watches his face. He’s so mobile when he’s awake: gesturing, expressing, noisy. Asleep, he’s different. Sweet, maybe, if she liked sweet.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Triss Merigold/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42





	1. Hey Little Songbird

#  I Want Everything

## (But Maybe We’re Enough)

### Hey Little Songbird

She wakes up first, and watches his face. He’s so mobile when he’s awake: gesturing, expressing, _noisy_. Asleep, he’s different. Sweet, maybe, if she liked sweet. He snores, ever so slightly, but being Jaskier he snores in tune. She allows herself to feel endeared. Reaches out and touches his hair, ever-so-lightly. She wants to keep him. She wants to hunt down Geralt and demand what the fuck he was thinking. She wants to hide, a little, from the naked adoration in Jaskier’s eyes when he’s awake: from the way he feels every single thing that sweeps through his heart. He stirs, and she smiles, and they both reshuffle themselves sleepily until she’s spooning him back to chest. He fits there surprisingly well.  
She wants everything, will always want everything, but right now everything consists of this one drowsy bard in her arms, so she holds him as if he were the whole world.

###### Notes

Hey, thank you if you're reading this. I have a few chapters in progress and plan to keep updating. I've had writer's block for a few months now so I'm just trying to climb back in. Hope you enjoy! Chapter title from a Hadestown song.


	2. You Left Me With Nothing But I've Worked With Less

#  I Want Everything

## (But Maybe We’re Enough)

### You Left Me With Nothing, But I’ve Worked With Less

When she’s tired, her back hurts. Yennefer knows it is a phantom ache, screaming at her from her past. She knows that her spine is perfectly straight and her muscles are perfectly strong and that there is no physical reason for her back to hurt. Still, when she is tired, her back hurts.  
She’s tired now. She’s exhausted, and she’s certain that somehow she’s still burning. That chaos is still scorching through her into fire. It isn’t, of course. But still. She’s tired, and she aches, and the house she’s hiding in smells musty and she is so angry that she might scream.  
“Fucking Nilfgaard,” she mutters. “Fucking Fringilla. May they drown in their own shit.”  
A soft laugh, followed by coughing, and Yennefer turns to the miserable house’s other inhabitant.  
“I’ll help you with that curse once I’m up again,” whispers Triss.

###### Notes

Not many notes, title is from Ani diFranco song "Dilate". Thanks for reading!


	3. Road to Hell

#  I Want Everything

## (But Maybe We’re Enough)

### Road to Hell

“The crowsfeet are new,” she says, and she means “I’ve been looking”. Means “Don’t you dare die on me.”  
“Your jokes are old,” he says, and doesn’t entirely know what he means.  
Finding the dragon is a lot more upsetting than she had thought possible. She leaves Geralt and leaves the mountain and leaves Borch and leaves her dreams and doesn’t think for a moment that Geralt might leave Jaskier on the mountain too. She tracks down Istredd, drinks some truly awful ale, and meets Vilgefortz. He lies to her, of course, and later she’ll consider feeling embarrassed about how quickly she jumped when he mentioned Tissaia. The chance for Tissaia’s approval. She wants everything. She wants to be someone’s everything, even for a little while. And even though she’s tried to hone it into a strength sometimes it still feels like a weakness.

###### Notes

Did I spell Vilgefortz right? Could I have checked extremely easily using the internet? Title from Hadestown again, because I'm dreadful at titles so stealing them from vaguely relevant songs seems like a good idea.


	4. Just Keeping It Interesting

#  I Want Everything

## (But Maybe We’re Enough)

### Just Keeping It Interesting

Unlike some Witchers who will remain unnamed, Jaskier does _not_ roll over and fall asleep as soon as he’s done. He needs a moment, and Yennefer is feeling benevolent enough to give it to him, and then he curls around her and uses his fingers while chattering away non-stop. She tells herself that it is not endearing, and knows she is lying.  
“...are a most demanding goddess in the bedsheets, Melitele. How do men survive you? Do they survive you? Wait, I’m not certain I want the answer to that. Yennefer dearest, if you intend to kill me afterwards, you’ll do it quickly won’t you? I realise that I have perhaps said certain unkind things about you, but surely I’ve more than made it up to you at this point...”  
She laughs without meaning to, and replies: “I don’t know bard, you’ve clever fingers so perhaps I’ll leave you alive.”  
“Well I am lutenist,” he says, and does something horrendous with his eyebrows while also doing something wonderful with his fingers.  
“Again,” she snarls. He complies. She might keep him.

###### Notes

Title from Ani diFranco song "Here for Now". I really really don't know how I fell into this pairing. How did it occur? Send help! Also, some actual Geralt in the next chapter. Inching towards an ot3, but slowly, like a drowner with no legs.


	5. We Are Deathless

#  I Want Everything

## (But Maybe We’re Enough)

### We Are Deathless

“Hmmm.”  
“Really, Geralt, _really?_ You abandon me on a very dangerous mountain with a cryptic dragon and two, I will admit, lovely women _after_ saying some very hurtful and untrue things about me that completely misrepresented my character. Cruel things, Geralt! As if I’ve ever done anything other than try to help you, in my perhaps clumsy way, for the twenty years of our friendship _that you won’t admit existed!_ And then you vanish off to Melitele knows where and now, and now, all you have to say is ‘Hmmm’?”  
“I’m sorry.”  
Jaskier sputters. He thinks he flaps a bit. He’s not sure what else he is meant to do in the face of such audacity.  
“I need your help. I understand if you don’t want to.”  
“You!” Jaskier whisper-shouts, “You, you! Of course I’ll help you, you bloody witcher. Everyone and their cow is looking for you, you know.”  
“Their cow?”  
“It is a figure of speech,” the bard hisses.  
“I’ve never heard it.”  
“That is because you are completely uncultured and also a million years old. Now tell me what you need help with before I regain what little remains of my sanity and run away.”  
Geralt jerks his head towards the corner behind them. Jaskier squints, and makes out the shape of what could plausibly be a young girl swathed in a cloak.  
“Fuck,” says Jaskier.  
“Hmmm.”

###### Notes

Really starting to abandon the drabble format xD Finally a bit of Geralt, but sadly no Yennefer. Title from the Ibeyi song of the same name, a very good song that um, has no relation to this chapter. I just liked the title...


	6. All That Matters

#  I Want Everything

## (But Maybe We’re Enough)

### All That Matters

Yennefer finds them on the side of a bloody enormous mountain that probably has a name. She doesn’t care to learn it. Geralt, obviously, has his swords out the moment she appears (she can only approve really). He frowns when he sees her, and she remembers abruptly that he is _handsome_.  
“Geralt,” she nods, icy. “Julek.” Much warmer.  
“Yennefer of Fucking Vengerberg, please tell me you brought the magical tent. I think my feet are going to fall off. And my fingers.”  
“Of course I brought the magic tent, bard. I like you all in one piece.”  
“How did you find us?” Geralt asks, sword still raised. She rolls her eyes.  
“Djinn wishes, Geralt, not so easy to escape. Now unless you’re planning to run me through with those, I suggest you put them away. You’re travelling with two mortals and I doubt you want either of them to freeze.”  
He lowers his sword, and she brushes past him. Ruffles Jaskier’s hair, and pretends not to notice Geralt frowning at that.   
Her back aches, and she still dreams of fire, and Chaos sings to her all the damn time, but she can put up a tent and smile at the girl and glare at Geralt until he goes inside where it’s actually warm. She smiles at Jaskier as he wraps himself up about six different pieces of fur and hurls the rest at the child that can only be the lion cub of Cintra. Yennefer wants everything. She will always want everything.

###### Note

I'm afraid it will slow a little from here on, but I'm gonna try to get this to something resembling a plot. Title is a line from "King" by The Amazing Devil.


	7. Really My Dearest Friend

#  I Want Everything

## But Maybe We’re Enough

### Really My Dearest Friend

“So,” Triss says, “you found them both?”  
Yennefer checks her nails, and Triss rolls her eyes at the performance.  
“Yennefer,” Triss says, “Yennefer. Yen. Yenna. Please. I am stuck in this mouldy-smelling bed healing from a gut wound. I am so deeply bored. I have started naming the knots in the beam above me. Indulge me. You found both of them. Have you _had_ both of them yet?”  
“A lady doesn’t fuck and tell.”  
“Since when are you a lady! Yennefer!”  
“I haven’t. Geralt keeps frowning and trying to work out if Jaskier and I are really friends. I think he frowns whenever he has a complicated thought. He gets this crease between his eyes. I’m enjoying watching him squirm.”  
“Oh, is it, is it that sort of frown like,” Triss brings her eyebrows together and glares, her face a bit distorted by the surface of the mirror. Yennefer snorts.  
“Hmmm,” says Triss, then tries again lower, “HMMM. Hmm?”  
“You’ve clearly met him then.” Yennefer smiles. Triss waggles her eyebrows  
“HmmmMMMm!” she says.

Jaskier finds Yennefer giggling too much to stand, and looks inordinately pleased even if she refuses to share the joke. Geralt, predictably, frowns.

###### Notes

Me screaming at my word document: I WILL WRITE MORE OF THIS RIDICULOUSNESS, I WILL!  
Are they in the magic tent? Are they at Kaer Morhen? Have I just invented magic talking mirrors because I wanted one? This and other questions may never be answered xD  
Title from "Jenny" by the Studio Killers.


	8. You were bored and I was bored, it was a meeting of the minds

#  I Want Everything

## But Maybe We’re Enough

### You were bored and I was bored, it was a meeting of the minds

King Virfuril of Aedirn is utterly useless at anything regarding competence. Unless it involves acquiring mistresses, although having briefly been one Yennefer can safely say that he’s only good at that because he’s a _king_. She was only eighteen when she joined the court of Aedirn, and it took a good decade for the polish to wear off. To realise that she’s only ever going to be there to clean up other people’s messes, to keep the repellent and greedy in power and step on the downtrodden and never take any credit for anything whatsoever.  
Most of all, she’s _bored_. And a bored Yennefer is an angry Yennefer and an angry Yennefer is a Yennefer who amuses herself by watching how far plots against the king can go if she doesn’t immediately stop them (embarrassingly far is the answer), fucking her way through the repressed ladies of the court (honestly that one is immensely fun), and accidentally making friends with a sorceress in Temeria when an enhancement that Yennefer is trying to make to her megascope does something unexpected.  
Of course, she has absolutely no idea how to have a friend, so it takes a while to figure out that that’s what Triss might be, and by then she’s left the court of Aedirn and, consequently, has no megascope and isn’t certain if Triss would want to hear from her anyway. She _could_ ask Triss for help with the whole fertility thing: Yennefer can’t think of anyone better at healing. But, maybe because Triss is something resembling a friend, she can’t bring herself to ask. The Brotherhood is already looking for Yennefer. No need for them to be after Triss as well. It makes for a lonely few years.  
When Geralt walks into her orgy with a bleeding bard and a jug of apple juice, she thinks at best he’ll be a delightful distraction...

###### Notes

The title is from the Ani di Franco song "Cradle and All".  
So um, now I'm shipping Triss and Yennefer apparently? But very gently. Well, I was trying to rediscover my writing!  
Should be noted that I've only seen the show, so most of my characterisation etc will be from that. I know there's some stuff with Triss in the games that is _supremely_ dodgy, but as I've not played them I'm not using that characterisation.


	9. Her Sweet Kiss

#  I Want Everything

## But Maybe We’re Enough

### Her Sweet Kiss

“You wrote me a song,” she says, and enjoys watching Jaskier almost fall from his seat.  
“Yennefer! To what do I owe the dubious pleasure of your company?”  
“The song, bard,” she says, and hums a few bars of it.  
“Ah, that song.”  
“That song.”  
“Is it at all plausible if I say that I wrote it about a _different_ insane yet sexy sorceress?”  
“I suppose that depends how many of us you know.” She sips at her drink, which the bartender had brought over without her asking. Jaskier frowns.  
“Mmm, no, not the most believable of tales. Though actually I did meet this other sorceress; gorgeous woman but not as charming as you at all. She didn’t quite have your single-minded ferocity, but there was an unpleasant curse and...”  
“Do you think me ferocious?” Yennefer feels, well, complimented. She leans forward. Jaskier, admirably, does not lean back.  
“We both know that you _are_ ferocious,” he says, and drains his drink. There are hints of grey in his hair, and a hardness in his face that he usually hides. She reaches forward, slides a finger under his chin.  
“And you know what to do with ferocious people, lark?”  
He flinches, which wasn’t what she wanted at all, and she is suddenly very aware of the lack of Geralt.  
“Don’t,” he says, and she draws back smoothly. The tavern is loud around them.  
“I heard that there was a bardic tournament in Cidaris,” she offers. He smiles.  
“Ah yes, and that utter wastrel Valdo Marx seduced the judges just before the voting began and _utterly_ spoiled the whole thing.”  
“And you’ve never seduced the judges?”  
Jaskier sputters, and retorts sharply before veering off on a long tangent about his own honour. Yennefer smiles, and listens, and wonders where the fuck that Witcher is.

###### Notes

Me now: what even is a drabble? xD  
The song for this one is, I think, self explanatory.  
Also, a quick note: I am neither physically disabled, nor a WOC, so please please if I make a mistake or a stumble around either of those things with Yennefer, please let me know! Same thing goes if there is stuff I should be tagging for that I've missed - the last thing I want is to miss something and trigger someone, so do just drop me a line if I have.   
Hope you are enjoying my extremely self-indulgent ramblings.


	10. Live by the Sword

#  I Want Everything

## But Maybe We’re Enough

### Live by the Sword

Istredd hadn’t been her first kiss. Her first kiss had been turned into an eel, and Yennefer had pushed her into a magical lake. She has no idea why she’s thinking about this now, in this cold and crumbling keep at the end of nowhere. Her family sold her, Anica was turned into an eel, Istredd is in Nilfgaard, Tissaia is fuck-knows-where, and she’d murder for a distraction right now. She wants to stop thinking about how everyone she cares about, deep under the layers of rage, is either already gone or being hunted. She measures her care for them in the fires at Sodden, in how many more fires she'd start, in how she angles her sharpest edges away from them.  
_I’ll keep them safe_ she thinks, and breathes through all the aches until she’s in something resembling meditation. Later she falls asleep, and dreams about turning Ciri into an eel while Geralt explains that she can still be a Witcher, probably, and King Virfuril twirls a bedizened and ballgowned Jaskier around the ceiling. It is not a restful night.

###### Notes

Hello I am still here! Had a bastard of a week, but a little something for you now. Song title is from the Dorian Electra song of the same name. Check it out!  
Again, thank you for reading. Always feel free to comment :)


	11. This Is My Emotional Support Sword

#  I Want Everything

## But Maybe We’re Enough

### This Is My Emotional Support Sword

Yennefer hates being out of control. Or rather, she hates things that are outside of her control. Like, for instance, this fucking healing process. It seems to consist of recovering to a point where her connection to chaos feels normal, and then suddenly being unable to float so much as a pebble and feeling as if her veins are made of hot wire. She is frustrated, and this is why she is up at what her mother would have called ‘the crack of sparrow’s fart’ running through sword drills in the courtyard.   
She learned in Aedirn, from a grizzled old guard who ran a tighter ship than Tissaia. She imagines she can hear him yelling at her about form. Still, she goes slowly, running through a sequence of lunges, dodges, parries, and swipes before switching hands and repeating. She continues running the same drill at increased speeds and switching hands, enjoying a burn that has nothing to do with fire, until a small voice asks:  
“Can I learn to do that?”  
And Yennefer realises she has an audience. Ciri looks impressed, and Geralt is as open as ever (that is, not). Jaskier is wearing so many furs that he could be mistaken for a small bear, and the three other Witchers (whose names she has, if not forgotten, then not paid much attention to) are staring. Yennefer cocks an eyebrow at them.  
“What, never seen a sorceress handle a sword before?” she snaps. The one who is built like a brick shithouse and has the worst of the facial scarring looks slightly embarrassed.   
“I’m sure Geralt will teach you darling,” says Jaskier, “Or Yennefer, if you ask nicely.”  
Yennefer snorts, and sheathes her sword before looking away from her audience and beginning a warm down.  
“So quick to volunteer my services, bard.”  
“Because spending more time with Cirilla would be such a hardship.”  
“I know some swordfighting already, I’m not _useless_ ,” snaps the princess. Geralt frowns.  
“Jaskier was teasing me, Ciri, not you. I’d love to teach you.”  
“That would be good,” says Geralt. He’s probably used all his words for the day now.  
“Why are you doing sword drills in a dress?” asks the less scarred Witcher.  
“So that I know what I’m doing in a fight if I get caught in one,” snaps Yennefer. The staring is growing old. She offers Jaskier an arm “raid the kitchen with me?”  
Jaskier swoons and takes it.  
“Jaskier is learning daggers,” Geralt states. Jaskier responds by swooning further, so that Yennefer has to catch him. She does.   
“Alas!” He declares. “A strong, attractive sorceress has arrived to carry me off to her evil lair, so I can’t have the dagger lessons that I never wanted in the first place. Oh no!”  
Yennefer snorts, uses a touch of chaos, and heaves Jaskier over her shoulder. He squeaks. She keeps her face very blank and walks back into the keep.   
“I was not expecting to be actually hefted, Yennefer. I am having some conflicted feelings about this. On the one hand, my dignity, on the other hand, I had no idea you were this strong and it is rather wonderful.”  
“Dignity?” asks Yennefer. Jaskier sputters.   
“Geralt, your friends are very silly,” says Cirilla.  
“Hmmmm.”

###### Notes

Hi I'm back! Am I projecting my frustration at having longhaul Covid onto Yennefer, I ask? NOT AT ALL IN ANY WAY.   
Title is not from a song, I just thought it was funny. I remember watching the fight scene in the mountain episode and being like "BUT WHO TAUGHT YENNEFER SWORDFIGHTING?" and decided that she learned in Aedirn cause she was Boredtm.


	12. With Your Burning Violin

#  I Want Everything

## But Maybe We’re Enough

### With Your Burning Violin 

Yennefer thought she would love Istredd forever. She couldn’t imagine _not_ loving him. For so long, he had been the only person who seemed to see her. Who laughed _with_ her, not _at_ her.   
And then, well then she had thought she hated him. Burning and angry, and wanting to rip him apart. To crack his bones with her hands. She thinks, maybe, that that was when she stopped hoping. When she locked that softer part of herself away and decided she would become whatever she needed to be, however much iron and blood and stone it took.   
What she needs to be right now is a much better teacher. Melitele, but she’s never had to teach anyone and all she knows is that she _won’t do this like Tissaia_. Ciri is, well, she’s sharp and clever and has a small vein of ruthlessness that Yennefer appreciates, but she’s also very soft and trusting and young. So young. And Yennefer has never seen anything like her magic at all, but it’s not like there’s anyone else around to help her.  
“So,” Yennefer says, “Just, balance them. You’re taking the energy from the flower, and floating the rock.”  
“Why can’t I just float the rock?”  
“Because the energy has to come from somewhere, and you don’t want to lose a hand.”  
“Could that happen?”  
“Yes.”  
“But it feels, it feels stuck How do I take energy from the flower? It’s already picked, does it even have any?”  
“Yes.”  
“But... I don’t understand why I can’t just - ” and she frowns, and the rock floats unevenly up and the flower decidedly does _not_ wilt and Ciri remains entirely unharmed, a small crease between her pale brows, until she gasps, loses control, and the rock flies up and crashes into the ceiling before dropping.   
“I think we can stop for today,” Yennefer says, looking at the pieces of the rock on the floor.  
“Was that... Did I fuck up?” She sounds genuinely terrified. Yennefer remembers, abruptly, that she needs to at least _try_ to be soft.  
“No. You did very well little mage. It’s just that your magic doesn’t work quite like mine, so sometimes unexpected things happen and I have to rethink how to teach you. Why don’t you go and annoy Geralt for a bit?”  
“He’s out hunting today. But Lambert said he’d show me how to do kohl and maybe bombs.”  
“That... That sounds good. Why don’t you do that?”   
Ciri smiles, and kisses Yennefer on the cheek before running off. Yennefer has to stay sat, her cheek abruptly burning and her heart doing some horrifying somersault thing inside that she didn’t give it permission to.  
“I will not be Tissaia,” she whispers to the empty room. “I will not.”

Of all the promises she’s ever made, this is one she intends to keep.

###### Notes

Title from "Dance me to the end of love" by Leonard Cohen, which is a fantastic song. Gonna try to climb back in here.


	13. We Kill the Flame

#  I Want Everything

## But Maybe We’re Enough

### We Kill the Flame 

“Have you heard what they call him?” asks Triss, who is, for variety, sitting in a chair rather than lying on the bed.  
“Call who?”  
“The Emperor of Nilfgaard.”  
“Oh. Him. What?”  
“The White Flame Dancing On The Barrows Of His Enemies.”  
“Well that’s a mouthful,” remarks Yennefer. “Do you think it’s a waltz?”  
“I... I have no idea.”  
“The waltz isn’t very threatening. If he waltzes over my body, I’ll have to come back and have some words with him about being appropriately dramatic.”  
“You know,” says Triss, “I actually think you would.”  
“The White Flame Dancing On The Barrows Of His Enemies. Perhaps we can defeat him with a candlesnuffer and a tripwire.”  
Triss laughs, and then winces.  
“Oh, ow. Was it Jaskier who wrote that song, the one that wasn’t quite about the Emperor? Um, _You Want It Darker_?”  
“I’ve never thought it sounded like one of his,” says Yennefer, carefully, “It always made me think of the Elves.”  
“You care about him, don’t you?” asks Triss.  
“Don’t make me talk about feelings, you know I’ll only come out in a rash.”  
Triss snorts, and reaches out. Yennefer takes her hand, kisses the back of it.  
“I don’t mind you know. That you care about him, and the Witcher. You’ve got a big heart, however tight you lock it away. I can share.”  
Yennefer doesn’t entirely know what to say to that. Triss turns their hands over, and kisses Yennefer’s fingers, and absolves her of answering.

###### Notes

Another Leonard Cohen song - You Want It Darker from the album of the same name. It's a fantastic song - for those who don't know Leonard Cohen is the original writer of Hallelujah, and if you've never heard him sing it I recommend going and listening to it. I realise I may have stepped in something by giving Yennefer the opinion that the song (which in real life is beautifully and unapologetically Jewish) might be about the Elves - I thought it worked but I'm not Jewish so if it is in fact Bad just let me know please: I'll listen and I won't be rude. I had all these intentions about a Yennefer Jaskier Geralt throuple, but instead what we have is Triss and Yennefer and hand kisses. And no timeline whatsoever - nobody needs those. 

ALSO, thanks to the those of you who kudosed recently, reminded me that I was enjoying writing this :) I also have a tumblr now, and no idea how to use it xD  
[Tumblr here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/joyisabike)


	14. In The Woods Somewhere

#  I Want Everything

## But Maybe We’re Enough

### In The Woods Somewhere

“I shouldn’t have said you’d make a terrible mother,” says Geralt.  
“You’re really bringing this up now?” asks Yennefer, who had previously been warm and comfortable on his (frankly ridiculous) chest. Geralt sort of... Shrugs  
“Figured you might be in a mood to hear it, you know, after.”  
She considers trying to turn him into a frog, and then graciously doesn’t. He perhaps has a point.  
“That’s downright manipulative of you. I feel proud.”  
“Learned it from Lambert.”  
“Less proud.”  
“Yen. I am sorry.”  
“It wasn’t about that Geralt. You took my decisions away.”  
“I meant...”  
She jabs him in the stomach, not hard enough to actually hurt (soft, soft, she’s getting soft) but enough to make him be quiet.  
“No, I’m talking now. You took my choice away, Geralt. What I was doing was dangerous, yes. Inadvisable. I might have died, _But it was my choice_ , and you, with your entire half a day of knowing me, decided you knew best. And I know I took some of your choices too, that day, but I never meant it to last.”  
“Still landed me in a cell. Could've been killed.”  
“Yes. That was... Unkind of me. Do you know how many choices I’ve ever had in my _life_?”  
“Do you actually want an answer?” He asks quietly. She sighs, and rolls off him. She feels vulnerable and furious and frayed, and part of her desperately wants to stay on him where he can hold her while she has this conversation. The wanting is terrifying, so she lies beside him instead.  
“I have had to bleed for every single one,” says Yennefer.  
“I didn’t... I just didn’t want you to die,” he says. His eyes glint gold in the murk.  
“Sometimes,” Yennefer says, “death is better.”  
There’s a pause in which neither of them know what to say. Yennefer thinks that, in their way, they are both weapons. But Geralt is a different sort of weapon, and she doesn’t always know what shape he’s going to take.  
“I never wanted to cage you,” he whispers.  
“I know,” she says, because however furious she is she can tell that’s the truth, “but you did and I’m not sure I know how to forgive you.”  
“Witchers don’t... We don’t. I was maybe five when I was brought here. You don’t choose the Path. You walk it, and one day it kills you, and if you’re lucky someone brings your medallion home. It’s not something you can choose not to be.”  
She’s not entirely sure she understands what he’s trying to tell her. She’s not entirely sure if _he_ understands what he’s trying to tell her.  
She reaches out all the same, rests her hand on his face. His eyes flicker shut as he leans in. Melitele, she could _break_ him.  
“It wasn’t about being a mother, was it?” he asks, eyes shut. “It was... They took things from you.”  
“Yes.”  
“You want them back.”  
“Yes.”

And they hold each other in the dark, imperfect and sharp and angry, while the wind batters the keep with its screams.

###### Notes

Well, that was um, more angsty than expected. Title from the Hozier song of the same name. Promise I’ll try to lighten things up a bit! I lied on my tumblr and said the next chapter was gonna be I Would Rather Chase The Sun, but that chapter is fighting me so you get this one instead.


	15. I Would Rather Chase The Sun

#  I Want Everything

## But Maybe We’re Enough

### I Would Rather Chase The Sun 

Spring is appraching. She can smell it. The air is warm, for a given degree of warm. She’s been sat out on a fur (on top of a blanket, on top of another blanket) for some hours now, with her face turned to the sun and her eyes closed. There’s an empty wineskin next to her, and the remains of some food. A warm body pressed to her side, smelling of bitter herbs and hair oil and kisses (kisses don’t have a smell, not really, but it’s a scent she associates with kisses). Somewhere, she can hear the sound of Lambert and Ciri plotting trouble. However as long as she doesn’t listen too closely, she can have plausible deniability when something inevitably blows up later. _It’s good,_ she thinks, _for a young woman to know how to make things explode._  
Jaskier’s head, somehow, is in her lap and she strokes her fingers through his dark hair (speckled with grey. It looks good and it makes her uneasy). Triss presses a kiss to her neck. Geralt is somewhere near, doing something complicated with swords. It’ terrifyingly domestic.  
Of course, they’re actually all here to discuss the Nilfgaard Problem, but Jaskier had demanded a break, which lead to a picnic with wine and Yennefer feeling about the softest she’s ever felt. It says something about her that the most content she’s ever felt is at what is, effectively, a very small war council. She is uncertain if what this says about her is flattering. Jaskier would probably come up with something about the Queen of Fire at rest in her hearth.  
Yennefer turns her face to the sun, and imagines the destruction of her enemies, and smiles.

###### Notes

This one really fought me! But I wanted something soft and warm, and I got there eventually. The title is a line from “I like that” by the incredible Janelle Monae, and I recommend you listen to it along with all her other songs ever because she’s fantastic.  
Hope you’re all doing okay in 2021 so far :)


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